If you’ve read many of our blogs before, you’ll remember that one of our main surveys we do in the coastal forest here is primate behaviour, focussing on the rare subspecies of the Angolan black and white colobus. It is my favourite survey, as you get to sit quietly and watch these beautiful animals go about their daily activities such as feeding and grooming.
A colobus rests in the canopy, whilst keeping his eyes on us
Every expedition (ten week research period), we aim to get an additional 25 hours of behavioural surveys. This can be almost impossible in the rainy season, as the vegetation is so thick you rarely get a good enough sighting to conduct the survey. But in the dry season when the leaves are shed, you can see the colobus at much greater distances and with very little obstruction.
A colobus sleeps during the hottest part of the day
This expedition (Jan-March) we have made a real push to get as much behaviour as possible, and our forest teams have spent days and days traversing the forest in search of sightings good enough to sit and do the survey. Many days are disappointing, and often teams get back with no behavioural data at all. But all of those days are worth it, when you come across a great sighting and spend hours observing the tranquil colobus in their natural habitat.
"Staring" is a behavioural state meaning focussed attention on the observers
I am glad to announce that we have not only hit the 25 hour target, but have exceeded it! We have completed our final day of research, and we have got 38 hours and 10 minutes! An incredible achievement; the largest amount of behavioural data collected in 10 weeks since GVI’s arrival in 2006. I’m very proud of the guys here, who have put everything they have into collecting this vital data. From this we can assess whether the colobus population is suffering due to increased disturbance. Lets hope not…
